KSA: Russia ‘can’t save Assad, killer of 300,000’

Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said Sunday that Russia’s efforts to support Syrian President Bashar Assad would not succeed in keeping him in power.

Addressing a press conference with Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, Al-Jubeir stressed that previous efforts to prop up Assad, including by Iran, had “failed.”

“Now, (Assad) has sought the help of Russia, which will fail to save him,” he said, urging Moscow to “end its air operations against the moderate Syrian opposition.”

Al-Jubeir said that “it is impossible for a man behind the killing of 300,000 innocent people… to remain” in power.

Assad’s departure “is a matter of time… sooner or later, this regime will fall, opening the way for building a new Syria without Bashar Assad.”

He urged the Syrian regime to “immediately allow the entry of humanitarian assistance to all parts of Syria, end military attacks on innocent civilians… (and) begin a political transition in Syria.”

US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, urged Russia to stop bombing “moderate” rebels, a campaign seen as a major obstacle to latest efforts to end the war.

Referring to the deplorable conditions in Syria, which require immediate relief supplies and also ground operation to oust Assad, Al-Jubeir said: “Any move to deploy Saudi troops into Syria would depend on the decision made by the US-led coalition fighting Daesh insurgents.”

He confirmed that the Kingdom had sent aircraft to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base for the fight against Daesh.